'Pacquiao v Mayweather': Only the big fights can survive on pay-pay-view after Khan KO

Even as Floyd Mayweather Jnr is accused of turning down a minimum $50million to take on Manny Pacquiao, our own Amir Khan becomes the first million-pound victim of a down-turn in boxing’s pay-TV bonanza.

The message could not be clearer: Only the really big fights can expect to keep raking in fortunes from the pay-per-view mother lode.

So where PacMan versus Money Man will become the prize-ring’s first $200m mega-fight if Mayweather ever grasps the pound-for-pound nettle, Khan is down to six figures in his next night’s work.

TV KO: Amir Khan has suffered a dent in his coffers after Sky pulled the plug on his upcoming fight with Paul McCloskey

One consequence of Sky’s decision to pull the plug on Khan’s Homecoming fight against Paul McCloskey is that after Manchester this Saturday evening, Bolton’s world light-welterweight champion is unlikely to fight again in Britain for the foreseeable future.

Khan is going through with this one, not least by way of keeping his promise to his home supporters to box here again. His consolation will be a probable MEN Arena sell-out crowd of 16,000 believers, even though much of Manchester will be emptied as United and City fans travel to Wembley for their FA Cup semi-final.

However, having swallowed the £1m cut which has reduced his purse to £250,000, Khan then expects to be moving back across the Atlantic for a title unification showdown with American Tim Bradley in July.

Not only would that fight be bank-rolled by the HBO cable network in the US but would command a pay-per-view slot here on Sky, rather on the fringe Primetime channel which has now picked Khan's WBA championship defence against McCloskey at the same £14.95 rate Sky had initially advertised.

Nevertheless, television and the fight game are going through a tsunami of a sea-change.

Although Sky’s U-turn has made for a dramatic week here – with the partial collapse of the undercard cited as one of the reasons - they are not the first broadcasters to challenge boxing’s long-standing presumption that there would always be rich and easy pickings to be made from pay-per-view. The signs have been coming that these broadcasts are about to be rationed.

Saul Alvarez is the hottest new property to come out of Mexico to America and is promoted by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy company. Yet he was not considered ready for pay-TV exposure when he fought Matthew Hatton, Ricky the Hitman’s brother, for the WBC world light middleweight title in Los Angeles last month.

So ‘El Canelo’ was contracted to receive just $300,000, of which he forfeited $60,000 for failing to make the privately agreed catch-weight limit. Hatton picked up $30,000 of that fine to boost his own take to a personal career high of $130,000.

All of this was a far cry from the millions banked by David Haye and Audley Harrison from their world heavyweight title non-fight in the same Manchester arena to which we are headed now.

Sky, having bought the hype, shared in the widespread public disappointment with Harrison’s inert performance. The fall-out from that fiasco is said to have limited the £14.95 advance Sky Box Office sales for Khan-McCloskey to barely 50.

In America, although Bradley-Khan should carry its potential pay-TV freight, the American’s much-ballyhooed clash with his countryman Devon Alexander did disappointing business.

The root of the problem is that there are two tiers of customers. The hard-core boxing lovers – 16,000 of whom will fill the MEN Arena – need to be heavily boosted by a wider public drawn to star name in marquee events if pay-per-view broadcasts are to be justified.

The promoters are also being challenged to stiffen the undercards with competitive fights to justify the price of the pay-TV packages. This Saturday’s supporting card has partially collapsed, with Matthew Macklin dropping out and the failure to clinch a proposed heavyweight clash between British prospect Tyson Fury and Hasim Rahman, who once knocked out Lennox Lewis.

Pacquiao, the Filipino sensation regarded as the greatest boxer in the world, is a huge enough draw in his own right to rack up high ratings once again on May 7 even though his opponent in Las Vegas, Shane Mosley, is past his prime.

VIDEO: Amir beware... McCloskey comes from all angles

Mayweather, who is now facing demands for more than $8m in back taxes from the Inland Revenue, will watch, wonder and have to decide whether to take the Pacquiao bait.

The Philippines congressman’s business advisor, Michael Koncz, reports that Mayweather has turned half of the offer from ‘a foreign country’ to guarantee a $100m minimum purse for a fight with Pacquiao.

Both boxers would also be on a share of the pay-TV revenue once it rose above that figure.

Koncz says: ‘Clearly, Mayweather does not want to fight Manny.’

Coincidentally, that increases Khan’s prospects of a huge-money fight of his own with Mayweather either this autumn or early in 2012…assuming the American avoids a long prison sentence from his up-coming court hearings for assault and other felonies.

Meanwhile Khan has to keep winning and, this week at least, banking comparative pocket money for fighting a tougher challenger than the general public seem to realise.

The undefeated McCloskey is not only a hard hitter but – as the attached YouTube video shows – is a southpaw who delivers those punches from unusual angles.

Khan should win but the irony is that he will probably have to do so in a considerably more competitive fight than Harrison gave Haye on the night that pay-per-view died a small death.

Quote of the week

Master trainer Freddie Roach on the only reason Manny Pacquiao may not KO Sugar Shane Mosley in their world welterweight title fight on May 7: ‘Manny will win and should knock him but he is a compassionate person. He feels sorry for his opponents as the fight goes on.’

Many observers believe the PacMan took it easy on Antonio Margarito in the closing rounds of their recent fight, during most of his which he battered the Mexican into a gargoyle.

Boxing is beginning to resemble the football transfer market, with rival promoters snaffling some of each other’s hottest prospects and loyalty fast disappearing.

Boxing is beginning to resemble the football transfer market, with rival promoters snaffling some of each other’s hottest prospects and loyalty fast disappearing.

Barry Hearn’s son Eddie, having already lured Darren Barker to Matchroom from Hennessy Sports, has now picked up another world title contender, Kell Brook, from Frank Warren, who had previously relieved Mick Hennessy of John Murray.

On the move: John Murray left Hennessy promotions the join the Frank Warren stabke

Rendall Munroe, having been steered to an unlikely world title shot in Japan, has repaid Frank Maloney for those efforts by defecting to Ricky the Hitman’s Hatton Promotions.

In America, Bob Arum’s Top Rank are legally blocking Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy from signing the next PacMan, Filipino-American Nonito Donaire…whose manager-wife Rachel’s sexy fashion style has been described as ‘tarty’ by the 79-year-old Arum.

The TV moguls have also joined battle, with Showtime tempting Manny Pacquiao himself to leave HBO.

Can transfer fees be far behind?

ERIK MORALES

Erik Morales has lost what may prove to be his last fight but fears that this great Mexican warrior might tarnish his legend by over-doing his comeback proved unfounded.

‘El Terrible’ pushed Marcos Maidana – none other than the Argentine puncher who came painfully close recently to knocking out Amir Khan – to a majority decision in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Sky commentator, and former world champion, Jim Watt scored it a draw even though Morales fought ten of the 12 rounds with his right eye grotesquely swollen and closed.

‘I still had velocity,’ said Morales. ‘But most importantly I still have heart.’

That he does. That fighting instinct which beats inside the chest of the man from the poorest ‘barrio’ in Tijuana is what drove Morales to become a five-time world champion in three different weight divisions.

There was not so much as a fragment of disgrace in defeat by the dangerous young Maidana and it is his series of wars with Marco Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao for which Morales will be best remembered.

It is truism of the prize-ring that every really great fighter needs his epic trilogy. Morales has two of them.

Fists of fury: Mexican great Erik Morales and Marcos Maidana trade punches in Las Vegas at the weekend

All three of his battles with Barrera – the fellow Mexican icon who gunned down Prince Naseem Hamed in his prime – went to split or majority decisions.

Morales won the first of those Fights of the Year and lost the second and third, as he did against Pacquiao. But the victories are indelible hallmarks on his record, with the one over Pacquiao given added significance by the two revenge Kos inflicted by the Filipino on his way to becoming now the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Morales has won an array of belts at super-bantamweight, feather and super-featherweight during his 51 victories in 57 fights.

Heart of a champion: A battered Morales sits on his stool refusing to give up despite dealing with a brutal eye injury for most of the bout

Between fights, he manages the Tijuana Parks and Recreation Department, donating his salary to the city ‘as my way of giving something back to the people who have been so good to me all my life.’

Since, evidently, he and his family do not need the money then perhaps now, at 34 and with his head held high, it is time for ‘El Terrible’ to hang up the gloves for good.

Saturday’s narrow and gallant defeat suggests that he will not now fulfil his long held ambition of surpassing his own idol, Julio Cesar Chavez, as the most decorated Mexican boxer of all time.

No matter. Erik Morales is a ring hero in his own formidable right.

There is a warning for two of Britain’s world title prospects in the beating taken by Michael Katsidis on the Morales-Maidana undercard in Las Vegas.

Last year, Australia’s Katsidis pummelled and stopped London’s Kevin Mitchell, who is hoping to meet Manchester’s John Murray in a world lightweight title eliminator.

However, Robert Guerrero smashed the face of Katsidis to pulp in a landslide win which puts him in poll position to challenge for the WBA and WBO championships.

THE OCTAGON

Another bid for a major title by a British mixed martial artist, another disappointment.

London-born Paul Daley partly lived up to his rather unfortunate ring name ‘Semtex’ at the start of Saturday night’s attempt to climb back from relegation from the UFC.

Daley floored Nick Diaz with a left hook in San Diego on Saturday night, only for the Strikeforce welterweight champion to repay that punch with interest and force a stoppage before the end of the first round.

Still, as one door closes another opens. British mixed martial arts has a new great hope in 20-year-old Norwich light-heavyweight Iain ‘Badman’ Martell, whose ferocious ground skills impressed in his debut victory over Christ Harman at UCMMA19.